The Allies and the Occult

The Best Kept Secret of World War Two

William H. Kennedy

January 2, 2012

        The epoch battle between good and evil known as the Second World War was fought on many fronts.  Most historians of this global conflict have noted that occultism played a huge part in the politics and war ideology of the Third Reich.  Fascist Italy's use of esotericists and clairvoyants  has been covered by a variety of scholars.  Academic researchers have also chronicled the mystical nature of the Shinto religion of Japan which heralded the Emperor as a living Sun God and offered its devotees a mythological pantheon of spirits, demons and arcane forces.  Few, however, have addressed the hard fact that the leaders of the Allied Forces, both political and military, were just as heavily influenced by paranormal considerations as the Axis Powers.  It is the overriding concern of this examination to focus on the secretive, frequent and sometimes shocking use of  psychics and divination practices by the Allies to wage a clandestine supernatural war against the enemies of freedom and democracy.

Part One: The Prime Minister's Mediums

 
        Prime Minister Winston Churchill is heralded as the stoic leader of the free world during the dark age of WW2.  Desparate times oftentimes leads to desparate actions and this adage is envinced in Churchill's obsessive use of  seers, mediums, astrologers and diviners of all kinds.   Churchill had an early interest in esoteric practices having been a 33 degree Freemason (which involves mystic rites) and  joined a neo-Druid pagan sect in the UK as a young man.  The first seer Churchill used was actually himself as he firmly believed he was clairvoyant after successfully escaping capture during the Boar War by innate psychic means.   His rapid rise  into the world of Realpolitik did nothing to deter his interest in the arcane.  As Hilter's bombs pummeled London Churchill began consulting occult experts and  mind readers to determine the course of the war.  As with all of the Allied leaders we will examine,  he kept this a closely guarded secret for the rest of his life.

(Churchill's official occult advisers, Archbishop Cosmo Lang, Lord Dowding, Spy Chief Maxwell Knight and Propagandist Dennis Wheatley)

        When most people  think of mediums they immediately conjure up images of questionable crystal balls, tacky neon signs advertising "psychic readings" and silly astrological charts.  Winston Churchill's official occult advisers were as far from this world of trickery and  con artists as one can get.  Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang was an expert on supernatural matters who ordered a major academic study of the spiritualist revival of the late 19th and early 20th century.  Before the war Lang had written a secret report for the British cabinet on King Edward VIII's (later the Duke of Windsor)  use of psychics, astrologers and crank mystical medical practices.  Lang consulted on Hitler's use of esoteria at 10 Downing Street as soon as war broke out.

          The most unlikely advocate of pretenatural powers was none other than Air Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding, head of the RAF who lead the British Flying Corps to victory in the Battle of Britain for air supremacy.  Herman Goering was awestruck at his counterpart's ability to intercept his Luftwaffe planes and his uncanny ability to predict Axis bombing strategy.    Quite shockingly, Dowding belonged to a spiritualist church and regularly consulted with channelers and other diviners including Joseph Benjamin and Leslie Flint to determine military strategy during the darkest days of the blitzkrieg.  The Air Marshall reported their metaphysical findings directly to Churchill.  Dowding strongly advised the war leader to secretly seek the counsel of other worldly beings via the use of mediums.   Lord Dowding was forced out when his spiritualist beliefs were exposed and exploited by his military rivals.   After securing the skies for the Allies he was sent to the USA as an adviser.  Upon retiring in 1942 he  immediately wrote a book about necromancy entitled Many Mansions (1943).  In the 1950s Joe Benjamin billed himself in newspaper adds as "Winston's Favorite Psychic" to demonstrate his help during the conflict.

         The head of Great Britain's secret service (MI5) counter intelligence section was the former British Fascist Party member and homosexual Maxwell Knight a student of Satanist Aleister Crowley and an ardent ritual magician.  Part of his duties was to consult with Churchill on esoteric matters.  One of his MI5 secret agents was none other than Ian Flemming who went on to write the cold war spy novels featuring a character he concocted named James Bond (007).   The character "M" featured in the Bond novels and films was partly based on Knight.  Flemming directly consulted with Aleister Crowley during WW2 as Crowley had been a British secret agent for England during the Great War.  When Rudolf Hess fled to the UK in England in 1939 in a stolen fighter plane to make peace with the Allies, Flemming suggested that Crowley should be employed to  question the German leader on occult matters but his plan was rejected.  Churchill considered the former vice Furher to be of little use and had him tossed in prison.

        Churchill's most direct occult adviser was former pro-Hitler RAF officer Dennis Wheatley who worked as Great Britain's chief propaganda theorist and primary combat strategist during the war. He was elevated to this exalted position because the high command ascertained that "Wheatley thought like a Nazi".  He was also an esoteric initiate and hugely popular horror fiction writer before the great conflict (only Agatha Christie outsold him).   King George VI stated that Wheatley was his favorite author.   In planning strategy for Allied victory the famed novelist developed the notion of "Total War" -- the contention that all resources (intellectual, spiritual and military) should be employed for victory.  This involved the use of Black Propaganda -- the clandestine use of information and  misinformation to undermine the enemy's morale and this included sexual, political, religious and even occult manipulation.  (White Propaganda is the clandestine use of information and misinformation to motivate supporters to work hard for your cause).

    Wheatley had an entire division under him called the London Control Group and generally bypassed its official governing committee. In 1941 he wrote a horror novel entitled Strange Conflict which depicted the Nazis as being in league with voodoo priests and using astral projection to spy on enemies.  According to historian Peter Levenda, Wheatley and his MI5 cohorts used an unnamed psychic codenamed "Anne" to "mind travel" from London to Germany and spy on Hitler!  He was practicing the very mystical techniques he was accusing the Fascist of employing.  Wheatley was a regular in Churchill's war rooms and suggested various forms of arcane propaganda including air dropping forged astrological leaflets and occult magazines over enemy territory which predicted that Germany would loose the war -- an idea he borrowed from his friend and adviser Crowley.

(Some of Churchill's unofficial psychic advisers,  Louis De Wohl , Dr Alexander Cannon and Helen Duncan)     

     With war raging all around him Churchill took the time to consult some of more famous and even notorious psychics of Great Britain.  This clandestine group was dubbed The Black Team.  Astrologer and popular religious novelist Louis De Wohl worked for MI5 and helped produce demoralizing esoteric materials to drop on the Germans.  De Wohl also produced horror scopes for popular newspapers predicting Hitler's demise.   He did this in conjunction with occult historian Ellic Howe  and the provocative master of Black Propganda Sefton Delmer. De Wohl also sought to determine exactly what advice Hitler's astrologers were giving to the leadership of the Third Reich concerning the war effort and this information was passed unto Churchill by Knight.  He reached the rank of captain and after the war returned to his profession of mass market fiction writing.  

    The psychiatrist Dr. Alexander Cannon combined psychotherapy with hypnosis and mystical practices and set up a lucrative practice on the famed Harley Street in London.  His patients included the upper crust of British society including King Edward VIII.  He also socialized with King George VI and other aristocrats.  Cannon had an encyclopedic knowledge of metaphysical practices and came to the attention of Prime Minister Chamberlin as early as 1935.   When war broke out he was recruited for the Black Team but soon things went sour when MI5 suspected he was a Nazi double agent. Forced to move to the Isle of Man, Cannon's phone was tapped and he was constantly harassed by the secret service.  His home was raided and some of his inventions confiscated including a primitive lie detector device.  Near the war's end he was left alone and continued to practice his mystical form of medicine until his death.

    The Scottish medium Helen Duncan was a popular guest speaker at spiritualist churches and paranormal bookstores and clubs during the 1930s.   A new book entitled Churchill's Witch  by Financial Times journalist Michael Colmer  asserts that the Prime Minister secretly employed Duncan for strategic advice.  Duncan's primary means of income came by working in a bleach factory to support her large family of eight children.  Although she received small fees at various public speaking venues she never charged the families of serviceman for information about their living and passed away relatives during the war.  She informed family members when their relatives were killed in action or if they were safe.  Trouble came for her in November 1941 at a gathering when she accurately announced the sinking of the SS Barham before the British government made it public.

     In a bizarre series of events in 1944 Duncan was charged under the Witchcraft Act of 1731 and in a mock trial was sentenced to nine months in prison.  Churchill was furious at her conviction and wrote a harsh letter to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison complaining of waste of resources on such litigation.  Duncan was released and later died in 1956 a few days after the police raided her home during a senace and threatened to return her to prison.   Much like the Nazis the Allies turned on many of the psychics they recruited as the war winded down.



                                                 

        As soon as war was declared popular occult magazines began  making predictions that their side would definitely win.  The US Astrology Guide quickly cast horoscopes for both British and Axis leaders.  In Germany the hugely successful Der Zenit astrology pulp magazine likewise made predictions about the outcome of battles and the war in general.  Louis De Wohl forged an edition of Der Zenit forecasting  an early death for Hitler and Mussolini. 

     


Part Two: The Presidents and Premonitions

        On December 7, 1942 the armed forces of the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor,  Hawaii and decimated the United States pacific navel fleet.  On December 11 Hitler declared war on the United States and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt found himself embroiled in a global two front conflict which he had been desperately trying to avoid.  The vast industrial resources at his command were quickly mobilized to confront the attacking enemies.  FDR understood that weapons and military strategy were not enough to overtake the international forces of Fascism.  The President had to wage a Black Propaganda battle against the Axis Powers and a White Propaganda campaign to encourage the American people to fully devote themselves to the war effort.

        Part of this strategy involved soliciting the help of the most powerful propaganda machine in the world --  the  Hollywood movie industry.  Run primarily by Jews the studios were more than happy to help in the defeat of the Axis Powers.  To bring this into action, the government, under FDR, set up two major institutions. First, the Office of War Information regulated what information about the war was released. Second, the Bureau of Motion Pictures was an agency that directly worked with Hollywood, setting up guidelines such as “Will this picture help win the war?” that helped decide which movies could be most beneficial to the American side.  To achieve this, movies released during this time showed grim images, anti-Japanese propaganda, and took the viewer into the depths of the sacrifices that American and Allied soldiers were making.   Films such as Hitler's Madmen, Guadalcanal Diary, Objective Burma and The White Cliffs of Dover were movies used to instill images in the public mind that would inspire the viewer’s support that the government hoped would bring victory. Even after the war was over, films continued to show a very skewed view of the war, glorifying the efforts of the US soldiers to show that their sacrifice was worth it.

        The use of White Propaganda documentaries with heavily occult themes were also used by FDR to rally the American people.  MGM produced a series of 7 short documentaries which featured the French seer Nostradamus who had been dead for over 400 years.  They were clearly copying Joesph Goebels use of the famed prophet.  In many ways the Americans were far more primed for esoteric indoctrination than the Axis powers with horror films like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy earning huge box office  profits in the 1930s.  The series of Nostrdamus shorts were hugely popular and interpreted the famous psychic's poetic predictions (called quartains) to chronicle the rise and fall of Hitler and Mussolini and the eventual triumph of the Allies.  The first of these films to mention the conflict in Europe More About Nostrdamus (1941) was even nominated for an Oscar for best short film.  These propaganda pieces were so effective that they were still being made during the cold war to presaged the fall of communism the last being produced as late as 1955.           

 

Full article HERE